2026 World Cup betting: England free bets, odds & price boosts for today's games

England play their second game of the 2026 World Cup this evening, one of four matches on day 13.

The Three Lions face Ghana in Boston hoping to build on their victory over Croatia and there are plenty of England betting offers from online bookmakers for that Group L encounter.

Evening Standard is your one-stop shop for all things World Cup betting, pulling together the best World Cup betting offers, the latest match and outright odds, and a few predictions for the upcoming matches.

We’ve pulled together our pick of the top World Cup offers for tonight’s encounter between England and Ghana, featuring a mix of sign up promotions, money back specials and free bets.

Evening Standard’s betting experts have picked out the best World Cup betting sites, assessing bookmakers based on welcome offers, ongoing promotions, mobile app quality, and market depth.

England are back in action tonight, but there’s still time to claim the popular BetVictor World Cup offer, which gives new bettors enhanced odds of 100/1 on the Three Lions winning the World Cup.

BetVictor have a good selection of price boosts for the opening game on both singles and multiples, while bettors can use the Lucky Dip feature to get enhanced odds on a random selection on selected World Cup markets.

Bet365 are the home of World Cup boosts for the 2026 tournament. Recently, they boosted Lionel Messi to score anytime against Austria from 4/9 to evens and the Argentine captain duly obliged.

Check Bet365 socials to find out what today’s Super Boost will be, while new customers can secure up to £30 in free bets to wager on the tournament with the Bet365 World Cup offer.

Bet365 are also offering winnings boosts on successful bet builder and accumulators at the World Cup, along with a £250,000 tournament challenge, early payouts if the team you backed goes two goals ahead and the Sub On Play On.

William Hill are all about the boosts for the World Cup, providing daily enhanced odds specials on selected matches, while offering a 50% winnings boost on successful bet builders.

There are also accumulator boosts available at Hills, while they will continue to enhanced the odds of selected outright bets throughout the tournament.

For new bettors, the William Hill World Cup offer is a bet £10, get £30 in free bets promotion, with the free bets eligible for wagering on the World Cup.

The Paddy Power World Cup offer is likely to change throughout the tournament, with the bookie regularly running special offers for selected matches. The standard welcome bonus is a bet £10, get £50 in free bets scheme.

England bettors will also be interested to know that there is a free bet builder bet available for every England group stage game.

With Paddy’s Rewards Club, enhanced odds, free bet builder for every England game, and Paddy’s Wonder Wheel, there is plenty of draw to Paddy Power’s World Cup offerings.

The Betfred World Cup offer gives new customers who sign up and bet a minimum of £10 on any event on the sportsbook £50 in free bets to wager on the World Cup.

Bettors can also secure a £10 free bet by wagering on every England and Scotland match at the tournament. Put together a bet builder with three or more legs and combined odds of 3/1, and wager £10 to qualify.

Betfred are also running a bet and get offer for selected World Cup games, where punters can claim a £5 in-play free bet by wagering the same amount on a qualifying fixture.

On top of that, there’s money back on losing accumulators, and the unique double-delight & hat-trick heaven promo.

We have an enhanced Ladbrokes sign-up offer available, with the bookie improving their welcome bonus to include £50 in free bets. The free bets are split into tokens covering singles, bet builders and accumulators and require a £10 wager to unlock.

Accumulator bettors can get their stake refunded as a free bet if one leg of their World Cup acca doesn’t win, so long as their multiple has at least five legs. There’s also a £5 free bet builder wager available daily for bettors who deposit £10 in shop using a Club Ladbrokes card and then wager £10 online.

The Betfair welcome offer for the World Cup features £30 in free bets. The free bets are exclusively for bet builders, which may or may not suit football bettors.

Betfair all offer a 90-minute guarantee on all World Cup games. That means if a wager on a match result market is winning when the clock strikes 90, it will be marked as a winner, no matter the final outcome.

Coral have improved their World Cup offer from bet £5, get £30 in free bets to bet £10, get £50 in free bets. The free bets are split into £10 tokens and all of them are eligible for wagering on football.

Bettors can also get their stake refunded on losing bet builders for selected World Cup matches, including England’s next game with Ghana. The Rewards Shaker gives punters the chance to claim a betting bonus every day of the tournament, including free bets and odds boosts.

The Sky Bet World Cup offer for new customers has been constantly updated throughout the tournament, but right now it’s the standard bet £0.05, get £30 in free bets scheme. While not the biggest welcome offer, in terms of free bets, it is tough to beat in terms of value for money.

There’s a chance to claim a share of £5 million with Sky Bet too. Wager £5 or more on the World Cup winner market to be in the prize draw, which will pay out if England win the tournament.

The Sky Bet Club provides a free bet for those punters who place five or more World Cup wagers, whilst price boosts are available for every game on Sky Bet’s excellent mobile app.

Tote’s welcome offer is bet £10 and get £40 in free bets, although not all of the welcome bonus can be used to wager on World Cup games.

Tote’s top World Cup promotion is both novel and unique with bettors able to get their money back on losing World Cup outright bets if the team they backed goes out on penalties.

Tote are offering a maximum refund of £25 on those losing World Cup outright bets, while users can who bet £25 on accumulator wagers can get a £5 free bet each week.

Price boost offers are everywhere at this World Cup, with every bookmaker enhancing their odds across a multitude of bet types. Here are today’s best price boost bets:

Bettors can find the best odds for World Cup fixtures below. The odds are live so any changes made by bookmakers will be reflected instantly.

Below are live outright winner odds for the 2026 World Cup, which will change significantly throughout the tournament.

Portugal vs Uzbekistan

With such a strong midfield, Portugal should be able to dictate play against almost any team in the tournament, but against DR Congo their only shot on target was Neves’ early header - clearly it’s not leading into enough attacks.

Will that change with this game? CR7 will be up front again, so I’m not sure it will.

But Uzbekistan lack pedigree at this level, and a single goal could decide it.

Portugal to win & under 2.5 goals - 11/4 (Sky Bet)

England vs Ghana

England’s second-half display after Tuchel’s half-time intervention produced a dynamic attacking display alien to most people who have watched the Three Lions at the World Cup over the decades.

Ghana were lucky to beat a stolid Panama, so an England win is a foregone conclusion - almost.

England to win 3-0 - 6/1 (BOYLE Sports)

Evening Standard took a close look at all the World Cup offers listed on this page before putting them forward. Here are some of the criteria we considered when looking at free bet promotions and other offers.

We weigh the value against the qualifying stake, as a high free bet figure means little if the qualifying bet is £20 at evens, for example.

Headline figures (£30, £40, £50) are only one factor - lower qualifying stakes often win out for casual bettors.

Free bets can be paid out in different ways, which might impact the overall value of an offer.

For example, bonuses split into 4x £10 free bets give bettors more wagering options, allowing them to potentially diversify their bonus, whereas one big £40 free bet token forces a single decision.

Restrictions on qualifying bets and free bet tokens can also make or break a welcome offer. Bettors should look out for minimum odds restrictions or caps on winnings from World Cup free bet offers.

Bettors may also be hindered by the type of wager a free bet can be used for. If the bookmaker offers a large bounty of free bets for joining, but all the free bets are restricted to correct score or more niche markets, the offer loses some value.

Some World Cup betting offers require bettors to wager any winnings, which subtracts from the value of any welcome offer.

Plenty of bookmakers will continue football-specific promos such as 2 Up, money back on losing bet builders, acca insurance, daily price boosts, and free-to-play games for the World Cup.

Ongoing promotions provide return value for bettors, so regular punters are set to benefit more from promotions.

Evening Standard has an in-depth guide on how to bet on the World Cup with plenty of useful insights, but for those seeking some quick hints and tips, here’s our top advice for World Cup betting.

Understand World Cup betting markets

Knowing how each betting market works and what has to happen in order for a bet to win is critical. Bettors should never bet on a market they don’t understand.

A novice bettor may want to keep it simple, wagering on markets like the World Cup winner or match result while building up their betting knowledge.

Outright vs match betting

Outright markets, such as tournament winner, top scorer, and Golden Ball, tend to offer the best value before the tournament starts, when the field is wide open and prices have not yet been sharpened by results.

Outright prices shorten quickly during the knockout rounds and that value tends to evaporate once the field narrows past the round of 16.

However, there are occasionally opportunities to get a bit of extra value on outright bets during the tournament following a surprise group stage defeat, i.e. Saudi Arabia beating eventual winners Argentina in 2022.

Match betting is the safer ground once teams are actually playing and form is visible.

Bet builders and accumulators

Bet builders combine multiple selections from a single match, such as match result, over/under, and an anytime goalscorer.

Accumulators instead combine selections from multiple matches and the odds compound across each leg.

Large accas can look tempting, with huge potential returns, but don’t forget the risk factor is being multiplied with each leg added, just like the odds. That being said, acca insurance is offered by some bookmakers such as Ladbrokes, which refunds your stake (up to £10) if just one selection of your 5+ leg acca fails.

Bet builder boosts, provided by bookies such as William Hill and Bet365, can also add a little extra value on the bettor’s side.

Reading odds and finding value

UK bookmakers default to fractional odds, but you can change odds to decimal in the app or website settings.

Bettors can work out their potential return with fractional odds: the right number shows the stake, and the left shows the winnings. So, if a £1 bet was placed at 3/1 odds and it won, bettors would make a £3 profit and also get their £1 stake back.

Decimal odds show how much you would receive back, including your stake. So, 4.00 in decimal odds is equivalent to 3/1.

The implied probability of a bet winning can also be determined from the odds. A price of 2/1 means the bookmaker rates the outcome at a 33.3 per cent of happening. If a punter rates it higher, that is where value sits.

You can find further value by comparing prices across multiple bookmakers using Evening Standard’s odds tool.

Bankroll discipline across a tournament

Set a total tournament budget before the opening match and stick to it - avoid chasing losses with bigger stakes on the next match.

Treat bets on your own nation's matches with extra caution - emotional bets are usually bad bets.

All bookmakers will provide various responsible gambling tools such as deposit limits, time-outs, and self-exclusion via GAMSTOP, but you can find further support at BeGambleAware or Gamcare and the NHS gambling support page.

For the first time, three countries will host the World Cup. The USA will host the majority of games, including all matches from the quarter-finals onwards - 78 matches across 11 cities in total. Canada and Mexico will host 13 games each, across two and three cities, respectively. The final is at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Evening Standard’s picks are re-ranked daily based on the current state of each promotion and the World Cup.

Personal preference can play a big part in what a punter views as the best offer - if you prefer accas, promotions that offer an accas winnings boost or minimise risk with free bet refunds might be preferable over boosted in-play odds, for example.

Yes, every UK-licensed bookmaker on this list offers in-play betting on World Cup matches.

If live in-play betting is your thing, LeoVegas Sport's welcome offer is a 100% profit boost on a first in-play bet.

Grosvenor also offers a strong variety of in-play bet builder markets.

Yes, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is scheduled to take place across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The 2026 tournament is the first to feature the expanded 48-team format, with 104 games across 39 days confirmed by FIFA.